A noisy nativity and perception, or is it qerceqtion?

I was busying in the kitchen making bolognese sauce in a surprise half hour that came my way. It was an emergency bolognese because the mince had been looking at me from a shelf in the fridge for about a week. I put on some carols from King's College. Not very Bolognese but it got me in the mood and helped me enjoy my scattergun chopping and sprinkling and stirring. We'd just got back from the 'noisy nativity' theatre performance at the school in which the dwarfs had featured as donkey and shepherd and the Pea made noisier with her new parakeet shriek. The Lozenge was outside the kitchen in his favourite crafty place which always looks like a tinker's cabin. You have to step over cardboard boxes with wonky holes snipped into them, collect a small pompom or a sticky pipe cleaner on the sole of your shoe as you tackle the obstacle course. That familiar crack as you crunch down on some hidden bubble wrap, and the core control required not to drop the baby as you negotiate. So the Lozenge was crafting away making a vending machine to sell his 'raisin pies', and he  wandered in singing along to Once in Royal David's City with the celotape in his hand, effortlessly hitting that top note: 'Maaaaaary was that mother mild...' smack on, and then asking me to find the end of the tape as he'd lost it again for the fourth time since he started. And then slipped out again in his socks to get on with his job. No idea of the bliss. No idea that this is where it all began. No idea of that feeling which this normal life gives at times, and which I never knew existed until it all began for us.

Back in he came, feeling like a chat about squid. I put down the wooden spoon and sat to listen while the bolognese bubbled.

' Sometimeth, Mummy there is an underwater battle between a sperm whale and a colossal suqid. And the squid...and the squid...Mummy, are you listening...and the squid puts its clawth into the sperm whale. And did you know that there is 2 types of squid. A giant squid, and a colossal squid. And the colossal one is bigger. The colossal squid has hooks and a giant squid just has suckers.'

Trying to get the dwarfs to clear up is a permanent state of play, but we're not allowed to tidy according to the Lozenge, because: 'This, Mummy, is imagination land.' I replied: 'Before you go back to imagination land, maybe we could just tidy this up just a tiny, tiny bit so that we can walk from the big room into the kitchen without coming out the other side looking like the Skip Creature.  'But that won't work Mummeeee!' sang the Lozenge: 'Because imagination land is here all the time. And you know what? Imagination land is a bit of a messy pla-ace!'

It's all about perceptions, according to the Lozenge's lady he goes to see about how he sees things, compared to how they actually are. To the Lozenge a q is sometimes a p and a b sometimes a d. But not always, just sometimes.

And as the learning support lady, who's a really nice Jewish Australian, was talking all about perception and how she can work a little bit on how the Lozenge sees things, I realised that perception is the root of everything because we all perceive things in our own way. People and places are different to all of us. And someone else's truth is sometimes not enough of a reason to change the way you see something. Is that dad or is it bab? A bog or a dog?

I have a necklace I wear which J gave me with the first letters of all my boys' names, and a bead for the Pea. On one disc it says: 'Walk on the Wild Side' which when my dad, or should I say my bab, saw it, he said: 'Oh no, lovie. Not any more. Surely?' But it reminds me that even in a domestic ditch there is a way of finding a little bit of wildness. Not hard with dwarfs and a pea in tow, but also to let the three go occasionally and have a foray on your own.

Hardly wild, some would say. Though for Israeli's it's illegal to go to area A of the 'Wild West Bank'. But for me, Nablus, a northern West Bank town wasn't so wild, but just a small adventure in itself. Enough after a few winks of sleep and two dwarfs and a pea wriggling in the bed and creating static in the dry air so we all looked like the aforementioned pom poms. And a nice small job to do for a friend, who lost his wife earlier this year, and has set up a wonderful foundation in her name, allowing Palestinian refugee girls to go onto further education, which they wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford. Here's what I made for him to inspire more money for the cause:

https://vimeo.com/147870109

She's a lovely girl, Ghaida'a. When I arrived in her front room I was a bit concerned. Her room was beige, her sofas were beige, her long manteau coat covering her lovely 17 year old figure, was beige. Her headscarf was beige, her face was a bit beige, and so was her Mum. I got that sweaty palmed feeling I get when I'm just trying to figure out how to get a spark and a story out of my perception of reality. But when we started to talk, the spark was in her, that was for sure. And her bedroom was pink. And she had a balcony, and a turquoise headscarf in her cupboard.

Not only is she not beige - she's also a role model and one that Palestinian society, even girls, need so much of at the moment. The stabbing attacks have continued. 2 little girls armed with scissors ran at 2 Israeli soldiers trying to attack them. One was shot dead, and the other shot but not killed. It's the new form of suicide because they almost always die these tweeny stabbers. Ghaida'a could have been one of those. What is the difference, and how do we perceive our roles in the world? What makes us become a 5 star student or a tweeny stabber? It transcends class and economic status and it's not going away. The Isreali reaction has been criticised by some:

'"Our rules of engagement are more permissive than restrictive, but when you have a trembling girl with scissors in her hands, you don't need to riddle her with ten bullets. You could kick her or shoot her in the leg," a Senior IDF commander says, "We learned a lesson from both intifadas – Palestinian deaths cause outbursts of violence.”

As Israeli novelist and playwright, A.B. Yehoshua wrote recently:
"(Netanyahu) has condemned, expressed anger, threatened to take retaliation steps and promised that Israel's security forces are capable of overcoming the attack. But there is one thing he has failed to do: He has failed to turn to the young Palestinians in a human, direct manner, offering them hope, in a bid to stop the acts of murder and outline a possibility for a better future for them and for us."

Palestinian young people need some form of hope for their future to be worth something.

We're going to have to watch out, as Europeans, not to emulate the Israeli State's security example over securitisation and Islamophobia. It's a worry, as Europe swings back around to the right.

"Even if we really try, the settlements and the occupation in the Territories will not become legitimate thanks to radical Islamic terrorists who strike in the heart of Paris…Neither will the world agree to support the continuation of the occupation, the settlements and our control of the Palestinian people under the disguise of a global war on terror."
--Peace Now Secretary General, Yariv Oppenheimer, writes in a local paper that the attempt by the right-wing to gain a political profit at the expense of the dead and wounded in Paris is “nothing less than cheap demagogy.”

I went to Nablus with a great Palestinian guy from East Jerusalem who helped translate for me. When we got back we picked up his two little children from their nursery school. They chatted to me in Arabic and then looked at me suddenly with big brown eyes - wide with fear. 'Fi yehud fi al aqsa'. 'There are Jews at Al Aqsa (mosque)'. Bad media can easily twist young minds and encourage a perception that isn't entire.

Then I went out and about near Qalqilya in the West Bank to make some short films and take photographs for a land mine clearing organisation. The cool blue sky was tinged with a wintry pink and we set out to interview a farmer who can now return to his patch of land and care for his olive trees, with his grandchildren, without worrying about stepping on a mine.  'I love the olive tree like my son' said the grandfather, 'there is no monetary value to it as I love it with my heart.'

'The land is the privilege of the human being' said his 11 year old grandson, Karam.

Such depth of feeling towards their tiny sliver of precious land - constantly in threat of being taken from them as has happened to so many little plots around the occupied Palestinian territories, and  Israeli settlements built.

So their perception of their land is heartfelt, as its future is always in question. And the meaning grows as deep as the roots of their lovely trees.

And finally on to interview an 88 year old man with the clearest voice, and the sharpest memories, about how he laid these mines with the Jordanian army in the 1950s. He sat there, his wife beside him, explaining how he couldn't have known back then that these land mines intended for their enemy, Israel, would be littered around their own lands nearly 70 years on.

Here he is with his lady who he married when he was 18.

Petits fours

For a few weeks now the Pea has smelled of cake, having been present in her chair in the kitchen during a bake off which has lasted from Rashimi's birthday on November 16th to the Christmas fair, carol concerts and now Christmas itself.

Having a baby in the house changes the atmosphere. Like a little sprite they create a warmth to the place quite different from humans of larger sizes. Babyhood is a tiny mouthful of sweetness - a petit four - which everyone knows will last just a blink, so everyone savours it. And everyone wants to draw near and taste the magic.  The best bit about it is no matter which baby - they all have it. None is exempt.

And life is all about sweetness and cake with two dwarves and a petit four pastry petal unfurling herself to the world.

We have a 4 year old in the house again. So a spiderman party began the bake fest with a red and blue cake with web on the top. 'Jaden can't come 'cos he'th gone to 'Ganda' mused Rashimi. 'But Telmo is coming. Telmo speakth Bathque'. Telmo is from the Basque country and when he arrived in school he spoke no English, and not even Spanish. Just Basque. He comes over and dresses up in Rashimi's spare spiderman suit and they weave little webs together. They have their own way of communicating.

And veering a little between squabbles and love, the Lozenge makes his brother a heart felt card saying: 'I love yuo. Hapiy Bufdai. 4 ***** uruaay!

With a Christmas tree, even though it still wasn't quite December, and flowers.

Because of course, it's been Christmas since May in our household but now the real countdown has finally begun, and the dwarves have had no trouble taking on elf status.

And any excuse for a bake off or any creative activity with a sprinkling of snowflakes:

to translate: 'Theis is crismus santaclos is fline froo dier ho ho ho. D end'

What our festive hutch advent calendar from auntie Rosie should have looked like: 

Our more authentic Pal Shack:

The roof began to droop after some enthusiastic scattering of snowflakes. That's the trouble with a flat roof in a snowy land.

Spiderman in Golan

Lake Galilee

The Pea's first voyage

'No morning is a morning without a newspaper, coffee and Fairuz,' said Nasser as he negotiated his rattling taxi down the winding route 443 to Ben Gurion airport. Fairuz is probably still one of the most popular musical icons for Palestinians. Her nimble Arabic vocals cascaded up and down against a backing of crackling strings as we drove between the separation wall: white Israeli settlements on one side, and a scruffy Palestinian village, minarets piercing the skyline, on the other. Perhaps cultural icons are ever more important for a people without a state; and why one as old as Fairuz, can live on in people's hearts for so long.

The Pea's first voyage: London to meet her cousin Lochie, even newer than herself, leaving her dwarf brothers behind for a long weekend. The Lozenge had crawled into bed with us in the morning where I was feeding the Pea. 'I always find the warm patch,' he said, nudging us onto the cooler part of the sheet. 'Is she humming a tune?' he asked as he listened to her little feeding noises.

'Are you going to see Fergus in London?' I worried that the fact the Lozenge and Rashimi were not accompanying us on the whistle-stop visit might instigate tears. But no. 'You know what I can do, Mummy. I can make my eyes sort of turn inside and I can see Fergus in my head! He's wearing swimming shorts with sharks on. I miss him.'

We were leaving the dwarfs with the raven haired combo of St Grace and the Glammy who'd come for what must have seemed like a busman's holiday from her three nannying jobs in Amman. 'Being with your boys isn't work,' she said, 'honestly I come here for a break,' she explained, sitting at our kitchen table wearing her bright red mini mouse pyjamas, as she spooned Cheerios into Rashimi's mouth. Through the Cheerios, Rashimi explained: 'There ith a RED sea and there ith a DEAD sea. And the DEAD sea has no fish and that ith why it ith called DEAD. Totally DEAD with nothing ALIVE at ALL. Not even mermaidth.'

'Excuse me, Rashimi, but I was the one who introduced you to this country, and both of these seas, and this mermaid, and you're telling me all about them?' The Glammy teased, continuing her story about her as a mermaid taking the dwarfs to an underwater world.

The Glammy is still living in Amman with her Mum and new husband, neither of whom work. So she supports both of them and their smoking habits, with her three jobs a week. She's so tired that her hair is falling out, which is her body's usual way of saying she's overdoing it. 'It's like I'm my Dad now,' she said. Her father died when she was a teenager and as the oldest girl she's taken on the role of supporting her whole family. 'People take and they take, and then my husband complains about why I don't have the energy to go out in the evening, and complains about a scratch on his finger when I've just had five injections into my scalp to try and save my hair,' she shook her lustrous locks, which still looked thick compared to what I have on my head. But everything's relative. 'Honestly, I come to your house for a break as you're the only ones in my life who actually give anything back.'

Whatever the reason, I was glad of her presence in the house during these uncertain times. And through working for us over the last three years, the Glammy and St Grace have become firm friends. I'd stocked the fridge and cupboards with frozen pizza, popcorn and crisps and diet coke for the Glammy. The Pea and I drew out of our road in the cab, I waved at the boys walking to school with St Grace, their rain coats fastened tightly under the chin. 'Bye Mummy. Bye bunny floppy ears.'

I asked Nasser the taxi driver his take on the situation in this country - the daily attempted stabbing attacks, almost always culminating in Israeli soldiers shooting the Palestinian perpetrator dead. And in almost every case the perpetrator is a young Palestinian - the bud of a life - inspired by an internet 'how to' video, or by peers, convinced that their martyrdom is worth it. It's a tragic scenario, and as the incidents continue, the Israeli reaction becomes yet more determined and angry.

'It's very bad now,' Nasser explained. He's from a village called Ein Kerem now incorporated into West Jerusalem, and formerly an Arab village. 'When I was a boy we all lived together in my village. Muslims, Christians, Jews. Our houses were intermingled with each other. My father remembers the days when no Jew cooked during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. They wouldn't even eat ca'ek (the sesame bread) in the street until the Muslims had broken their fast. We got along with each other better back then.'

'Haram' (a shame), he said, shaking his head. 'I don't want my children and my grandchildren to feel what I feel. And in my eyes Obama has been as bad as George Bush in his dealings with our state.'

As the Pea and I went through passport control, the pretty young Israeli official looked at the Pea's brand new passport. 'Congratulations on your new baby,' she said, peering over her counter to take a look at her in her pram. 'But why you go to Bethlehem in the West Bank to have your baby? The hospitals in Israel are much better.'

We boarded the flight and to my annoyance our seat was occupied. But I soon realised the occupier wasn't moving anywhere. A lady of at least 80 with a walking stick, accompanied by her daughter on her right, gave me a big smile and a shrug - pointing to her crippled looking feet. I also shrugged, in a slightly bolshy manner, and then of course we got talking. Inshira' and her mother were flying to Oaklahoma to visit Inshira's brother. They took Petra from my arms immediately and when they heard she was born in Bethlehem they laughed and said: 'Hieh Falasteenieh!' (She's Palestinian.)

I relinquished the childcare for a few minutes and the air hostess asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I looked at my watch and mumbled maybe a coke.

'Are you looking at your watch to see if you can have a drink yet?' said the hostess with a distinct Northern twang. 'I drink at any time of day when I'm flying. Go on, what would you really like?'

We were definitely homeward bound.

Inshira's Mum pointed at the clouds out of the window and asked her daughter: 'Telj?' (Snow?); as the Pea slept in her arms, and I sipped on a can of beer.

A promising start for any future travels with the Pea.

What ears?

Even with piglet in tow, the dwarfs found dressing up in time for book week at school a little too much at 7am.

A Jordanian farmer and Tigger were in the deepest doldrums.

'I don't like my taaaaaaaaail! I don't like my taaaaaaaail Mummy I want to take it off.' Rashimi whined all the way to the car as we set out. But that tail was my piece de resistance, with an unravelled coat hanger inside so it bounced, just like Tigger's. No way it was coming off.

So I had to lure them with car sweets...and I was thankful that at least one member of the tribe was not wailing, hasn't tasted a sweet in her toothless state, and didn't seem to notice her ears.

What ears?

Luckily I found one of my favourite Skandis at the entrance to the school whose son was having an equally large tantrum about his viking helmet which she had been up all night crafting. We fell upon each other and quaffed coffee, laughing hysterically.

Since meeting my lovely clutch of Skandi friends here, I've been wanting to join their club. Now I need to check out my DNA.

Maybe I really am a viking?

A sense of wonder and a six year old

The Lozenge is six. He celebrated with a Minions party and his world turned blue and yellow for the day while he entertained a clutch of school friends, a mere 25 small ladies and gentlemen, at home.

The cake was gratefully received, and I avoided for another year, an expensive shop-bought, polystyrene-tasting number. Though it took me most of a day to make and my hands were blue for the rest of the week.

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

AA Milne clearly spotted something special about six.

In the fabulous film Boyhood by Richard Linklater, the opening scene is of a six year old boy, lying in the grass staring at the clouds. The Lozenge has reached this chapter, and now I see a boy with absolutely no baby or toddler left in him, the essence of the person he is destined to be emerging quite clearly in this age of innocence.

Maybe the age of six is when patterns in a child's head become a little bit visible to an outsider. Like you can feel them trying to make sense to the world; of life and how things work, searching for clarity. And marvelling as some knots unravel before them.

Maybe the age of six is the first true age of wonder.

I took the Lozenge, Rashimi and a couple of friends out for a birthday dinner and at the end of the evening, we climbed into our bashed up Nissan after plates of chicken nuggets and a pile of cinnamon twists covered in sparklers.

The night air was cool as I started the engine and as we drove down the familiar seam road dividing West and East Jerusalem. I opened the cranky sun roof just for fun. The little group of friends cooed and sighed at the stars above us, and then it began to rain. 'No! Don't close the roof Mummy! We want to feel the rain on our faces and see the sky'. And in the rear view mirror I saw the small faces gazing up, transfixed. The Lozenge's Swedish friend said: 'This is the most awesome car in the woooorld!' And later as I pulled the duvet over the Lozenge and kissed him goodnight he said to me all in one breath as he drifted off: 'When-can-I-be-six-again-and-have-dinner-in-a-restaurant-with-my -friends-and-drive-home-in-the-darkness-with-the-roof-open-and-see-the-stars?WhenMummyWhen?'

With the recent troubles in Jerusalem I've been collecting the boys on foot from school to avoid public transport and traffic jams. Walking rather than driving provides more avenues for conversation as the pace is slow and considered with the Pea in a pram and two tired dwarfs dragging their feet after a busy day. I love this walk. We all get to see things that interest us. For me it's the buildings and the people: An Ethiopian church, Holman Hunt's House, a Synagogue, Ultra-orthodox men scurrying by, side-locks swinging, and then at the bottom of  Hanevim (Prophets) street, after a gentle downhill slope, to your right, you get a glimpse of the Dome of the Rock - shining gold on the furthest horizon, framed by palm trees, and a tiny peek of the less spangly Al Aqsa Mosque. It stirs me though I am not a Muslim. It amazes me that in this land, where so much has been destroyed in the name of God, so, also, have these beautiful things been created.

As I gazed at the dome, the boys kicked stones along with their trainers as boys do and the Lozenge shooed away a street cat. 'These cats are not nice, and they smell when they're dead Mummy.' (Referring to the rotting feline corpse we had near our garage last year). But they don't smell when they're alive, do they? So why are they smelly when they die? And us too - we're not smelly now, but do we smell when we're dead?

A conversation followed about death and decomposition as we crossed the same seam road, and into our Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhood.

'Great Granny was buried under the earth, becuase we went to see the place where she is in Scotland didn't we. Did she decompose like the cat?'

The Lozenge shuddered. 'I don't want to decompose.'

 'But it is quite cool that I'd make the flowers grow.'

'And I don't want you to die Mummy,' said Rashimi.

'Can people still hear when they die?' asked the Lozenge.

'No because our ears are also busy decomposing and making themselves into plant food'.

On the other end of the timeline of life lies the Pea, and since she arrived I've noticed how no one can speak to a baby in a language that isn't their own. Our house has been a revolving door of visiting nationalities since the Pea joined our family. From Bethlehem to Babel she has travelled. We've been inundated with gifts and gestures - a warm Iranian quiche delivered to our door by a glamorous Iranian friend; on the Pea's wall hangs a Hail Mary in Spanish and on her shelf a tiny golden Jerusalem cross on a chain from a Palestinian friend. In her 10 weeks of life she's heard: Armenian, Basque, Catalan, Spanish, Farsi, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Hebrew, Sinhalese from St Grace and plenty of Arabic: Jordanian, Palestinian and Egyptian dialects. I love how my Swedish friends sound out her name 'Pee-a-trah', and it seems her name is the same in every language. Everyone wants to visit when you have a baby in the house, and everyone talks to you in the street. It's like you have a small, breathing charm in tow. Everyone wants to share in the wonder and their mother-tongues come from the bottom of their souls. We all explain it differently but the wonder is shared.

I'm now in my den, the Pea, pea-cefully sleeping, and I'm listening to Bach.  Maybe you know you're a grown up when you appreciate birdsong and Bach. It's music that makes you stop and not do anything so you have space to listen. I remember my Grandfather sitting alone in a sunlit room in North Wales for much of a morning, just listening to Bach. His huge long fingers, like the BFG's it seemed to me, tapping occasionally on the arm of the chair.

I remember the CD was the Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould. It was called: 'A Sense of Wonder'.

A friend put me onto a beautiful podcast which I listened to yesterday: 'Composing a Life' with Mary Catherine Bateson, the daughter of the anthropologists Gregory Bateman and Margaret Mead.

Every word is gold, but one of her clearest truths, so applicable to our lives in this holy city filled with misunderstanding and hatred, is this same notion of wonder.

She says: 'To me the starting place is the sense of wonder. And that can take you into science, it can take you into art. Other human beings are amazing and beautiful. The natural world around us -- the more we study it the more fascinating and intricate and elegant it turns out to be...
Look. Just look. Realise how beautiful it is, how complicated it is. The wonder of creation...
I got interested in the sense of wonder, because I spent a year of high school in Israel and then I came back and decided I wanted to learn about Islam and I studied Arabic. So I thought I should be doing something to address the Islamophobia, hostility and prejudice that has grown up after 9/11. The way I went about it, was to say: What is it that makes me as a Christian, empathise with a Muslim. At what point are we together? And what struck me is that what actually all three of the religions that come from Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam - what we all have in common, is the sense of wonder that leads to praise. That is to say, when you go from wonder to a religious context, a shared worship, something like that, it takes the form of praise. And in spite of the huge differences in other aspects of the traditions: the different set of rules, expectations, behaviours. Praise is central in all of them.'

Wonder must be the sacred we can share.

Especially with a six year old.

From decomposition. To domes.

Marshmallow land

The Pea is back in bed after being awake for an hour and a half and there is silence. Peace that is, other than the drone and the helicopter overhead; and the continual text messages informing of stabbing attacks in Hebron or Jenin, and skirmishes of Palestinians against the ever trigger happy Israeli Security Forces.

The Pea and I are at home alone together for the first time since she arrived. Our house has been filled with people and whilst these have been the happiest of months, I'm relishing the solitude and the feeling of independence. This morning I feel as though the storm of the beginnings of a human trajetory has passed, giving way to gently lapping waves against the sides of our little boat of life. Our keel feels steadier, the rudder set gently in place and we sail forwards.

St Grace has gone to collect her husband who will be coming to work here in Jerusalem. After nearly 2 years living in our house, she will move out and live with him in a small lodging with his new employer - conveniently just across the valley from where we live.

I've learned so much from St Grace over this time, despite the inevitable and occasional pinch points due to co-existence. She's tolerant and quick to laugh. She lives and she loves with a fullness of spirit. She's been so happy since the Pea arrived, calling her Pinki - a Sri Lankan name she loves. 'She is our first girl,' she laughed. St Grace has only ever cared for boys: her own son, now 13; our dwarfs; and one other boy before us. She crocheted a little dress for the Pea which we will keep for ever.

As she left our house for the bus to the border into Jordan, to return in two days for a new life here with her husband, she said goodbye to us. She touched the Pea's cheek. 'Good bye Pinki. I will see you in two days.' St Grace's eyes filled with tears. I will never know all the depths to that woman and how much she suffered from leaving her own child at only 2 years of age. But what I do know is the sadness and struggle of it all has not left a shred of bitterness behind in her. Her strong faith has helped her work things through. 'That Holy Sepulchre has answered many of your prayers, hasn't it Grace,' I joked to her the other day. She shook her head, laughing, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. 'We ask for things, we ask again, we try to do good. And then we wait. Wait for the answers.' she said.

I'm looking forward to her being back, and working with us in a slightly different capacity. With a bit of extra space between us, we can appreciate each other even more, like when you move back from a painting in a gallery to wonder at it more wholly.

***

The first few weeks with a new baby is like living in marshmallow land: everything is soft, sweet and squishy, with the moments melding languidly into each other making me wonder what we did with our time. Each anecdote and action is in danger of being immediately forgotten as the body takes over from the head, and locks into provision mode until the baby is about 3 months old when some clarity and angles appear from the mallowy madness. I think a production cycle is almost exactly a year - 9 months in the making, and 3 more to rejoin the wheel on which other non-hormonal humans spin.

The interesting thing about having a third child, as Rashimi pointed out, is that 'The Pea is all of our baby'. Not just J's and mine. And the beauty of having multiple kinder is you get to observe as well as participate, while the small strands of relationships begin to form between ourselves like a tiny web - our threads linking to each other and back and on towards a different human in the family. The web is more complex and the dwarfs thoughts and actions towards their small sister are intriguing and funny.

The Lozenge had drawn a picture of 'Petra and the Planets' and stuck it on the door in time for her arrival home. The small, and the infinitesimally enormous, combined on one purple bit of paper stuck to her new bedroom, formerly the dwarf zone, with 'mathking tape' without which the Lozenge does not spin happily in his own personal orbit.

With each new child, the level of chaos and lack of control creeps down a notch. The new normal is now a new level of chaos, I thought as I hurried from delivering the dwarfs at school to give the Pea some more immunisations, her little body like a sack of new potatoes dangling around my front in a hastily hitched sling, her small purple mottled calves sticking out like frogs legs, causing bemused looks from Palestinian passers by who do not carry their children in this way.

The night before, I'd threaded Rashimi into a spiderman suit while feeding the Pea and operating the TV control with the other hand for the Lozenge, and Rashimi observed: 'Wow, Mummy, that is cool. You can feed the baby and put on my thpiderman suit at the same time. You're just like Mr Clever!' He's right. I often find myself carrying the Pea, still feeding, on her cushion around my waist while I go to answer the door or reach for the phone. Like the lady with the ice cream tray around her waist at the theatre. There's no limit to what you'll try to avoid screaming Peas or histrionic dwarfs. Life becomes a constant conquest for calm. And life for those first few weeks and months is purely about milk, which is also reflected in our conversations.

I'm not a natural milk cow and I complained to J one day somewhat tearfully that the Pea would have starved to death by now if we were in the wild. Or we'd have been eaten by an animal because I had to sit there for so long feeding, for her to get enough. Even with the third child the 'breastapo' breast feeding warriors can make you feel bad about using formula milk. But fortunately if you're married to a man, only one of you will be surfing on hormones. J replied calmly: 'But the great thing is, we're not in the wild Luce, and we can use the formula milk when we don't have quite enough,' giving me a huge hug.

And the constant feeding allows room for dwarf observations, who are never far away. They miss nothing.

While playing with a little friend who has no brothers or sisters yet, Rashimi explained: 'Did you know, Dylan? That milk cometh out of Mummy'th boobies?' he enquired of his friend who was staring with interest as the Pea had her fourth meal of the day.

'Yeah,' continued the Lozenge, 'she's just like a cow.'

'And a cow. That can talk!' marvelled Rashimi putting a final piece of Lego on the garage they were building.

Later that day the dwarfs flanked me, their hot breath near to the Pea's face, their hands, which looked so enormous compared to hers, leaning on our bodies. 'Do babieth have bones?' mused Rashimi kneading the Pea's legs, while the Lozenge whipped out one of the pads from my bra and said: 'Mummy, what'th this?' putting it on his head, while Rashimi did the same with the other. They sat there either side of me with the white pads on their heads.  'They look like those hats that men wear on the street! But their oneth are black!' referring to the Jewish kippa hats we see every day.

As he left for school one morning, Rashimi asked. 'Mummy, is it alright if I can see your boobies?'

'If you don't ask, you don't get,' laughed J, helping them zip up their back packs and heading out the door.

We wondered if this would be one of Rashimi's stock chat up lines later in life.

Hopefully that one rather than another one we overheard at school: 'Did you know that dogs sniff each other's bottomth becauthe they really want to say hello to each other, but they can't talk.'

On the whole, the dwarfs seem unperturbed by the diminutive newcomer. And they don't seem resentful of how much time I've been locked down, feeding. Although the crying of the Pea does upset them and occasionally spurs them into rather effective action. At one point of fever pitch, they both crouched by her car seat rocking it enthusiastically back and forth, the Lozenge singing Jingle Bells on the kazoo, Rashimi on the castanets, and both musical boxes throwing out a clashing harmony of Brahms and Swan Lake. Some gentle snoring emanated from the car seat in a matter of minutes. This baby seems to love noise. And both dwarfs love rushing into her room to re-insert the dummy. Perhaps smelling of Nutella not baby milk is a help.

And the existence of a girl about the place is also educational. They often bathe the three of them together and the Lozenge picked up the Pea by the legs and had a good look at her bottom. 'So she doesn't have a willy,' he remarked. 'So does the wee and the poo come out of the same place like a pigeon?'

The order of things changes with each new chick in the nest, and in some ways the older ones become more independent as a result.  The Lozenge had his first day out to the beach with his lovely Swedish friend.

He took a sketch book in his backpack and they had lunch in Ikea, aka 'the blue and yellow shop'. As his brother drew out in his friend's car, Rashimi sighed: 'I miss Lauwie.' They hadn't spent a day apart since January.

I feel like the time in marshmallow land is drawing to a close. I have more energy for other bits of creative activity, and my brain seems like it is creeping back into the lead again, leaving the body a close second. In some ways it reminds me of reaching the end of making a TV or film production: I am thankful for the space, but in a little corner of myself, I miss the frenetic action of the set and the adrenalin and excitement it gives.

This is war

'This is war now,' says the Niham, Palestinian health worker to me as she prepares to prick the Pea's dough-like thigh with a vaccination shot. 'Life here for us is unbearable and we are afraid. Afraid for everything.'

Our East Jerusalem neighbourhood has changed over the last couple of weeks. It's littered with hurriedly assembled checkpoints of cement roadblocks, groups of border police and soldiers and the ubiquitous blue and white Israeli flags, for extra salt in the Palestinian wound. Although our area is administered by Israel, it is still officially Palestine - and houses the Old City and contentious Haram e Sharif, or Temple Mount, the third most holy place for Muslims, their sovereignty of which is continuously threatened.

I collected the dwarfs from school and on the way back, we passed at least three groups of Israeli border police - heavily armed in flack jackets, carrying out impromptu searches on skinny Palestinian youths. The young men, most with the de rigeur hair cut with shaved sides and a strip of hair on top like a racoon, were standing with their hands raised, shirts lifted to reveal a naked torso. The dwarves gawped as I snarled under my breath - 'just leave them alone.' I imagined what I would feel if they were my boys. And I also wondered how much more anger these police were stirring up inside the young men - perhaps further radicalising them with every poke and prod.

The atmosphere is tense and you feel like one spark would send it all up again.

As Niham measures the Pea's dimensions she cries: 'Mashallah!' (God willed it!) in relation to her growth curve. 'She is doing well, mashallah!' Although she expressed concern abut the size of the Pea's head which was off the scale compared to local babies. She pointed a biro above the top of the curve on her graph. 42cm - this is veeeeery big! 'How is the father?' asked Niham, enquiring about the size of J's head. 'I'm not sure actually,' I said, laughing. After 12 years you'd have thought I'd know if J had a big head or not. 'Well, maybe she's just got a lot of thoughts in there,' I said. Despite Niham's difficult circumstances she is chatty and friendly to me like everyone we've dealt with in the realm of health since the Pea was born.

Our room in Bethlehem where we stayed for those first two nights during a hot week in August, a clutch of nurses became our regular visitors: Samah (forgiveness); Ahlam (dreams); and Jamila (beautiful). A healthy recipe for life in their essence by the meanings of their names. We were comfortable in the little room which looked out onto a hibiscus bush - the vermillion flowers bursting open at daybreak and folding sleepily at dusk. Just like ourselves. Labaneh, olives, a boiled egg and warm flatbread arrived on a tray at breakfast and during the night if the Pea wailed for longer than a few minutes, Jamila would pop her head around the door: 'Would you like me to take her so you can sleep a little habibti (dear)?'

'How many babies are you looking after tonight?' I asked.

'Just 24!' she laughed.

I went with her down the corridor, a large Bedouin family spilling out of the adjacent room talking excitedly and drinking tea. An older lady cast a bemused expression towards my legs which were bare from the knee down.

I could see, when I saw the rows of Palestinian babies lying under brightly coloured hand knitted blankets, with heads of thick black hair peeking out, why the Pea had caused so much excitement amongst the nurses. She seemed like a shining smooth boulder compared to the other little shaggy haired pebbles around her. Perhaps a kilogram more than the average, and hair dark hair seemed blonde compared to her tiny neighbours.

'Isn't it amazing how each one is so completely different to the other,' I sighed to Jamila looking at the little bodies, gently breathing under their blankets.

'Yes, and they are aaaaaall beautiful,' Jamila said, smiling warmly.

'How many children do you have yourself?' I asked.

'I have no children of my own, so I have all the space in my heart for the babies I look after here.'

Beautiful by name and beautiful by nature.

J spent the first night with the Pea and I, and then collected a duo of exciteable dwarfs and St Grace the following day. We'd phoned home earlier and told the Lozenge he had a baby sister. 'Oh, that'th nithe!' he'd said. From an adult that would have sounded so trite. Yet this comment came from the depths of the Lozenge himself - we could hear that.

Mum arrived that afternoon and came for dinner and a glass of sherry in our little room. I hoped the alcoholic wafts didn't disturb any of our neighbours.

The atmosphere in our house has changed almost immediately for the presence of the Pea. I had wondered before we brought her back home, if the dwarfs would feel threatened or bored by the demands for constant feeding and lulling her to sleep. But back home the dwarves proved themselves to be enthusiastic mannies. They sang and stroked and swaddled her, leaning their full weight on her tiny body as they bent to kiss her. 'She smells nithe!' said Rashimi, with a slight Arab lilt to the way he pronounced,' Smell'. Like the way he says 'littel' and 'tabel'. 'And Mummy, I want her to stay small for ever and ever.'

That evening I'd watched the dwarfs playing with a matryoshka doll as I fed the Pea on the sofa. Rashimi's nut brown, sticky hands pulled the little dolls apart revealing one doll inside another and then another inside that one. It was like an onion, I thought, as you peel off the outer layer to reveal another almost identical but smaller one within. And it struck me that the matrioshka could be the symbol of a matriarchy - the female line. I looked at the Pea snuffling at my chest and remembered that she has all her eggs in her body already. And I've had mine since birth, and Mum had hers, and so on. We women are the matryoshka themselves. Smaller buds of bodies within each other's bodies.

So it's no wonder that for having an, albeit tiny, female presence about, the dynamic and balance of our little family has changed for ever.

Later that night, J and I lay mulling over our brand new order of things, the Pea lying between us. 'I've never been in bed with two girls before,' he said as he fell asleep.

Sleeping lion and small lioness

Cubs contemplating one another

A daughter

Poem for a daughter by Anne Stevenson

'I think I'm going to have it,' I said, joking between pains.
The midwife rolled competent
sleeves over corpulent milky arms.
'Dear, you never have it,
we deliver it.'
A judgement years proved true.
Certainly I've never had you

as you still have me, Petra.**
Why does a mother need a daughter?
Heart's needle, hostage to fortune,
freedom's end. Yet nothing's more perfect
than that bleating, razor-shaped cry
that delivers a mother to her baby.
The bloodcord snaps that held
their sphere together. The child,
tiny and alone, creates the mother.

A woman's life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first particular cry.
The she is not alone
but part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.

The arrival of The Pea

Perhaps in every couple there's one train fever type, and one who prefers to board the moving train, having made full use of every minute before its metal bulk draws out of the station.

Unfortunately for J, it's the wife with the relaxed approach to timings which in the case of the arrival of a child can be uncomfortable.

The sky was blue, the sun was beating down on the grim, grey graffitti-covered wall separating West Bankers from Jerusalemites - dividing families and tribes; splicing off chunks of valuable land from Palestinian farmers; barricading believers from their holy sites; and often forcing pregnant women to give birth at the barrier, in worst cases causing infant deaths.

But for us, what could go wrong? 9 days beyond the due date and I'd been graced with Palestinian virtues from somewhere: sabr: patience; and sumud: resistance. The charming obstetrician from Beit Sahour in Bethlehem said to me: 'I've never met a woman as patient as you. Really, you know we can give you an induction - there's nothing to fear.' But I had to resist, because twice before my body has managed alone without being pushed into labour - so why not a third time? He rolled his eyes, seemingly a little familiar with female obstinacy as a father to four daughters.

So after our consultation on a sunny Monday afternoon, I was itching to get back home and prepare - tying up those final loose ends before our lives were rearranged once again by a tiny creature. The metaphorical train could wait for me just a bit longer. J asked nervously: 'Are you sure you don't want to stay here? The doctor said it wouldn't be long, and I really don't want to get caught at a checkpoint or in traffic on our way back here.'

But who could argue with a woman this pregnant?!

We cruised back to Jerusalem, popped into Gap where J bought some new trousers - a few funny looks in the shopping centre at my low slung belly. I wondered if we'd get a lifetime's supply of free chinos if the baby popped out in the store.

Then passing Notre Dame, the early 19th C  building opposite the new gate to the Old City, we remembered the restaurant rooftop and decided to have some dinner up there.

Back home around 9.30pm, I advised J to get some sleep because if Bunny Floppy Ears was to make an arrival, he'd be running on empty without the natural adrenalin I was going to get.  I updated my blog, cruised about the house packing the hospital bag, humming to myself when I realised that the lower back pain I'd been feeling in the rooftop resto must have been the beginnings of things afterall. The contraction I felt that minute meant I had to stop and hold on to the door frame.

I woke J, then I waddled into Grace's room to wake her up while J hurried about finding his keys and his bag. Grace had been staring at me thinking I was about to give birth for over a month. Now was the moment and she leapt from her bed shouting: 'YES!' bosoms flying, and suddenly realised J standing behind me, clasped her hands in front of her chest. 'Sorry Sir!' she giggled. She hugged us so tight. I looked at the car dashboard as J started the car.10.45pm.

We hadn't counted the sets of traffic lights from our house to Bethlehem. But all I remember is that each one turned red as we approached. All I could feel was my own clammy hand holding the handle above the car door and the most regular and intense waves of a baby very much wanting to arrive, as J quietly and determinedly DROVE. No trouble at the checkpoint, and barely any traffic. But those red lights gleaming in the darkness…they will be my eternal memory. 'Go through this one if you can, there's nothing coming,' I hissed. (Apart from a baby of course). By 11.15 J was hooting the horn to get the guards to open the electric gate to the hospital car park. 'Come ON.' The gate c r e ak ed open. I moved myself out of the front seat, feeling no different from one of Dad's cows in labour in nocturnal field in central Scotland. I  had to stop every two or three minutes to breathe, gripping J's arm. We'd called  the obstetrician and he was on his way, but his cousin, a midwife was there when we staggered in. 'We don't have long' I giggled between contractions, then having to stop again by a cool stone hospital wall and lean my head against it.

By the time we got to the ward, and Dr Salameh's cousin was hurriedly arranging her things and washing her hands I had to wee, so I sat on the loo. 'Habibti (dear) do NOT sit on the toilet! Don't PUSH! You're pushing!'
'No I'm not I'm doing a wee'.
'Habibti, get off the toilet and onto the bed - the baby is going to come in the toilet!' she shrieked, struggling with some latex gloves.
'But I don't want to wee on the bed,' I said.
I made a move to change my clothes on the way to the bed.
'There's no time!' she shouted. But I insisted and she tossed me a bright pink gown

'Lie on the bed!' she said

'No'. I replied. I couldn't think of anything less comfortable at that point.

And before I'd really had time to argue any more with the well meaning midwife with the brusque bedside manner, I was staring through my own legs at a complete surprise.

I stared, and stared. But where was the willy? I had presumed all along that our baby would be a boy, and there, writhing about on the paper sheet, was quite clearly a purple, mottled baby girl - already crying loudly and taking in gulps of air. Very much alive.

'Binit!' (Girl!) cried the midwives as J cut the cord and they passed her to me to hold.

11.45pm.

I looked at J as he kissed me, remembering what he'd said on our way to the hospital that afternoon. 'You know Luce, that if it's a girl, one day she might have a husband. It's a really scary thought.'

'Now you know what I've felt about our boys and potential women', I laughed.

The obstetrician came screeching in to see us all there on the bed and aplogised for missing it. 'Mabrook! (congratluations) I wish all my clients were like you, ' he laughed as he hugged me, 'I'd have no job!'

'What will you call her?' asked the midwife. We were friends again after the little storm that had produced our baby girl without any intervention.

Petra. We sounded it out for the first time. A name we both loved as much. Meaning rock. The feminine of Peter. And of course that wonderful place.

As J.W. Burgon wrote in 1845
'…match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city half as old as time.'

And we stayed in that little room on the hot summer night, not wanting to burst the bubble, as Petra snuffled and spluttered through her first minutes, staring and marvelling at the perfection of the ordinary miracle. Older than the rose-red city; as old as time itself.

Morning birdsong and the waft of damp jasmine

I open one eye and see the silhouette of the Lozenge beside me in the bed. Petra the pea - now 8 weeks old - lies between us, snuffling and wriggling and pawing her face impatiently with a tiny hand. The Lozenge moves his shaggy head closer to ours as he squints through the half light. 'I can see the bird that is making the funny weaaaa! weeaaa! noise. Look it'th that one there!' I crane my neck sleepily around to see out of the window.  Our surround sound is the morning cacophony of bird song from the tall trees surrounding our cool house, providing us shade in the warm afternoons and uplifting chirrups at 6am. A pigeon roo-coos. 'Mummy the pigeons you get here are not the same as the oneth in London are they?' the Lozenge asks. 'They have an orange rim around their eye and these ones jutht black? ' I mulled over his question with one arm on a cool sheet; the other under two of our three small people as J and Rashimi organise breakfast in the kitchen. I feel as though we are cocooned in a feathered nest. The night before we'd made a map for the Lozenge's homework. 'Your child can draw a map of their journey to school' the teacher had written. So the Lozenge drew our garage, some trees, the tram gliding along on its cable, the golden semicircle of the dome of the rock, St George's cathedral and some horse droppings by the side of the road. We'd scooted through some horse poo the previous day. I enjoyed the detail and the over-scaled dimensions of the horse poo - almost the same size as the cathedral windows.

I look at his map which he clutches in his hand in the bed and I think of all the things he didn't draw on it. The multiple checkpoints that sprung up a couple of days ago: spikes along half of the road, cordons and cones and a groups of Israeli police with enormous automatic weapons. The horse droppings were left by the police horses now patrolling daily. The nocturnal soundscape, before the birdsong begins, is a circling chopper - growing fainter and then louder as it hovers around and around above our troubled little East Jerusalem district. I wonder, when we no longer live here, if the Pea will be able to sleep without the sound of a helicopter and screaming and wailing sirens which pierce our every night.

Our soft bubble of mallowy life with a new baby - focusing on the basic early requirements of sleeping and feeding and shushing and cooing, as we slowly get to know each other through smiles and songs accompanied by the constant patter and regular shriek of the dwarves - is a million miles from the stormy sea on which our bubble rests. It's strange how you can live in a place where you hear and smell and sense the violence underneath, but never really see it or witness it first hand. 7 Israelis have been stabbed in the last few weeks, and many, many Palestinians killed in demonstrations, and shootings since the summer. The fear on both sides hovers like the helicopter at fever pitch - the Israelis for fear of being stabbed or rammed by a car; the Palestinians from being shot by over zealous Israeli police or soldiers. And the Palestine penitentiary -- their very own country which neither truly exists yet from which they have no escape -- becomes an even higher security jail with checks and blocks restricting their movement and increasing their daily struggle. Life is hell for Palestinians right now. Morale is low. And we live in the centre of it all, unable to change a thing. We walk the streets and chat to our local friends, comiserating and reassuring them we feel it for them. 'Umm Petraaaa!' calls the man from the dry cleaning shop near our house. 'Keyf al baby? Keyf bintik?' (how's the baby? how's your girl?) We smile and wave at those we know. But we can't change a thing for them.

Though we don't feel afraid for ourselves. The Lozenge confided in me the other day: 'Mummy, we learned at school that when the alarm goes and the light flahses, it's 'CODE RED' and it means robbers might be trying to get in, so we go into the underground bunker.' While I'm grateful the school take security seriously, I don't feel we are at risk in any way. But if I looked obviously Jewish or obviously Arab, I would not feel like this. And I would be terrified for my children. Particularly teenaged boys who are often the focus of Israeli bullets. Live rounds are used at demonstrations. 3 Palestinian children have been killed like this recently.

A few days ago we had our first rain in months, and I wheeled the Pea around our neighbourhood to get a sense of things. A surveillance balloon hovered, a white  bubble against the unusually grey sky - keeping tabs on our Arab neighbourhood and those in the old city. I smelt a waft of damp Jasmine as I struggled to push the pram over potholes and piles of uncollected trash and up and down from high pavements; meandering around an unearthed tree root in the middle of one. But for us, these really are our only obstacles here. It was October 6th, and the Lozenge's 6th birthday. Also the day of the funeral of the 13 year old boy who was shot by the IDF, still wearing his school uniform as he walked home from school past a demonstration of fellow Palestinians. The IDF were using live rounds of bullets to defend themselves from the stones. Can you imagine if police and soldiers used life bullets to quell demonstrations or uprisings in Europe? 'A mistake' they say. The boy was killed just around the corner from the Holy Family hospital where Petra was safely delievered into my arms.

I met a Palestinian friend and we talked.

She explained she can no longer visit her parents who are in their 70s and need her help, becuase they live in the Old City which that week Palestinians had been blocked from entering. Most Palestinians we meet say they can never remember things being so bad they are forbidden to enter the Old City. 'It is becoming like Hebron now,' she lamented.

It feels like civil war, really. In a recent trip to the market an Israeli shopkeeper spat when I spoke in Arabic, mistaking him for an Arab. 'Yeeeuch. Arabic - Yeeeuch!' He flobbed on the ground and it landed near my feet. I put down the bunch of parsley I was about to buy from his stall, and wheeled the buggy on. Arabs I talked to in Wadi Jowz below our house said things have never felt so bad, and the killing so arbitrary yet so targetted by one for 'the other'.

The damp jasmine leaves are a metaphor for Arab spirits these days.

Yet I lie with the Lozenge and the Pea this morning and listen to the duet rythms of their breathing. The Lozenge begins to hum 'Deck the Halls' under his breath (it's been Christmas here since May). And my mind retraces 8 weeks of the Pea's life from how it began so happily in Bethlehem on that hot summer night of August 17th.

Who needs Shawarma when you got Shamallow?

Bethlehem:

August olive groves,

paint on cold grey slabs of wall;

strong kicks from within.

Sabr

'Mummy, the thing ith. We are ready to meet the baby. But the baby ith just not ready to meet uth.' says Rashimi, looking puzzled.

The waiting game. 9 days late and Bunny Floppy Ears is evidently enjoying the complimentary womb service. I can even feel the impatience in all things dwarf-related. And St Grace is on tenterhooks. She keeps staring at me silently from doorways. So we keep ourselves busy. We wander down our local shopping street, Rashimi as spiderman, and both dwarfs riding scooters where we drop off a stopped clock and 2 dwarf watches for fixing. 'Besalameh' says the watchmaker, wishing us well for the birth of the baby and laughing that he of anyone knows about things being exactly on time, or late, in Palestine: clocks, watches, and also babies. And on we go to the fruit shop for some pineapples - also supposed to encourage labour. We come out with 4 pineapples which Mohammad warns us are gold plated in price these days; a handful of fresh ochre dates still on their branch, which he swears help babies arrive and gives us free, and a little bottle of oil with a mysterious name 'kaf marim.' I trust him that it's all I need to make the baby arrive and google it when I get back. 'Anastatica' or 'The rose of Jericho.' In for a penny...

According to the description I find online, the Virgin Mary blessed this plant during her flight from Nazareth. It represents new beginnings, hope and the resurrection. What more could I need?! And apparently also brings on labour, as a side note. I notice it's related to Castor oil plant and its roots look like a weird spider triffid. I quaff a few teaspoons of it, and hope for some effects soon. And maybe even a resurrection. It's 38 degrees and I'm starting to get some funny looks as I stagger on my long baby-inducing walks around this extraordinary city that you'd think had seen everything.

Somewhere between patience and hurry is a beautiful space called borrowed time. But it can grow in intensity and easily sway from beauty to anxiousness. It's getting later and later, and people are texting and asking more and more regularly, 'has it arrived yet?'  'Where is this elusive stork?' Well - we're the Arab world after all - that harried stork is probably busy delivering many, many, many other babies to other homes. 'Doeth the baby come out of your mouth?' muses Rashimi from the back of the car. 'Noooo, Washimi. It's attached to that string which is joined to Mummy's tummy button and it comes THWINGING out on that!' says the Lozenge.

Every day is an extra day of mooching about - dressing as pirates,

and staring at a ladybird so close the breath from their nostrils must cool her hot black spots.

The dwarves rag around the house interrupting me as I try and actually, maybe just this once, achieve something with this time, other than sitting tight allowing tiny internal hairs and toenails to grow, and more ounces to pad around a pair of tiny frog-like thighs. I don't feel that effort - so I belittle it. And I try and keep going with those other efforts that give you more satisfaction - for some reason. Because in school we weren't taught that having a baby was an achievement, and about the only one who ever says 'well done!' about things like that are your parents.

We traipse to the obstetrician to have a chat about induction. I get the feeling the medical bunch here love to throw drugs at a situation rather than waiting for nature. But I'm holding my nerve. Every time I call Dr Salameh he asks: 'Keyfik?' (How are you?). 'Hamel' (Pregnant) I reply. The joke has lasted for 3 weeks now. Lines of loaded August olive trees cast shadows against the grey slabs of cement wall separating the 'Wild West Bank' from Israel. A large sign explains to Israelis they are not allowed to enter. 'Do not cross to the other side of the wall' they threaten in white bold print. They might as well hang a sign saying: 'Danger of Death' like they do on a pylon. A hot and lazy looking IDF soldier lets us through the barrier and we pass a little green sign which says: 'To Bethlehem' and we weave around the wall which blocks the sun, with some nice graffiti plastered over with less thoughtful spray paint. The doc says he's cool with letting the baby take its time, and he won't fill me up with oxytocin provided the creature is still getting all it needs inside. I reckon it's getting so much - that's why it wants to stay there. Private party for one. Sharing is a total hassle. Maybe it knows that newborn baby-dom for me is about the scariest place there is - where I can never seem convince myself that I will go back to normal, and that I will manage to achieve a balance in life again. I wake at night and have to give a virtually physical push to dark clouds which loom head-wards as I feel around the wall in the darkness to offer milk to a wordless creature entirely dependent on me.

So that's why this borrowed time is so beautiful for me. And J feels it too - and it's like we're in this bubble together. Although this time, it will be all of our baby: Rashimi's and the Lozenge's - not just J's and mine.

Sabr is the Arabic for patience, endurance. The sabra is the prickly pear cactus which the Palestinians use as a symbol for everything they endure both in this land, and as a diaspora. So using a play on words with the notion of patience, and with the cactus' ability to stay alive with little water, it's become a symbol of fortitude and resistance too.

I feel it keenly as we enter the cool cube of the Beit Jala pork butcher. The young butcher, Rafa, greets us with a huge smile, opening up his metal fridge to reveal strings of dangling, shining sausages next to the stacks of ribs and bags of fillets. His customer base is dwindling as Christians leave the Arab world in droves. But pork is half the price of lamb, a third of the price of beef, so it's a hard-to-find bargain in this extortionate land. His family live in Canada now, but he is employing the 'sabr' as he keeps the Beit Jala pork business going. He rears his own pigs. And how we appreciate his fare. The smell of pork in his shop is so familiar, it seems unfamiliar in this faraway land with few porkatarians. The taste of the pork is better for it being hard to find. The mysterious spice he uses in his sausage mix is appreciated even by dwarves, not normally swayed from the well-trodden chipolata route.

In the afternoon we have an offer to accompany a wonderful Israeli academic around some Christian areas in Jerusalem's old city. The Armenian Patriarchate - a vital establishment for this plagued and highly talented community. The Armenians were apparently the first community to introduce printing, ceramics, girls schools and photography to this city. They were so sure of the importance of educating girls, we joked there might be a Matriarchate soon. The monk shows us around - explaining how they still shelter the descendants of Armenian refugees who arrived during the genocide in 1915 - where the Ottomans killed 1.5 million of them. The library looks quasi Art Deco and has some of the only copies of Armenian newspapers and other texts from the time of the genocide.

Cloistered near the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem's Old City, is the Syriac Orthodox church, San Marcos, where 'Abouna' 'our father' is praying in Aramaic for evening Vespers. We sit quietly in the pew while he chants peacefully. It is mesmerising - almost soporific after our hot walk, now sitting on the cool pew, my ankles lightly throbbing.

The tiny church has no statues - only icons. His words and his style of clothing unchanged for centuries, he is part of a tiny community here who are facing deep concerns about their fate. Not just here, where there aren't enough of them to keep procreating effectively; but also in Syria. A Syriac Orthodox bishop was kidnapped in 2013, and there are desperate stories coming out of Homs and Aleppo - two important bases for their community.

After he finishes his prayers he turns to talk to us. His long white beard another seeming relic from the past - our friend asked about Homs about Aleppo. 'I hear bad news.'

'Yes - we can just hope. We just...pray. We just know that our Lord is the saviour of all...We must trust in him'.

He raises hands and eyes heaven-wards.

He shakes his head, his eyes glisten. What must it be like to carry that around - in this enclave - with a dwindling population of Syriac Orthodox unable to help their communities within Syria? The terror. The loneliness.

Sabr. Patience. Sumud. Defiance. In his case I feel it is more defiance in the face of evil than anything else. And absolute trust and patience that one day good will prevail.

My week finishes with a discovery of an Israeli acupuncturist, trained in China, and based in Jerusalem's nature museum. I wander past rooms of stuffed birds, looking as turgid as my equally stuffed-looking pregnant ankles. I won't be missing these two trotters:

The nature museum is the kind of place where you might happen upon a dusty dinosaur egg. Natan Natan's practise occupies 2 small rooms within the building, and after he gently applies some needles to my legs, hands and forehead, I lie there in the dark for 45 minutes: celtic music drifting from some speakers on the plain wall. No noise from the dwarves safely at home dressed as pirates making a catapult from a springy lime tree. A good place to be. Even if it does nothing to bring this baby on. The borrowed time feels so peaceful and so wonderful, that when the baby finally arrives, bringing with it much more, we'll realise how much we had before anyway. Sabr. No hurry. No rush.

Spiderman and a Nordic midwife

There's nothing like threading a naked body into an acrylic spiderman suit in 40 degrees. But for the last few days, Rashimi has insisted. He comes padding along, holding it out for me to help him get his two sweaty legs into the suit, ripping open the scratchy velcro tabs to fasten at his back. But like a diva squeezing two hot feet into five inch stilettos - style comes before comfort. And he runs happily off to spin some webs, with a slight wedgie at the back. The suit's a bit small so he's more like Spiderman the orphan these days.

In order to prevent the spontaneous combustion of Rashimi, I've ensured we visit at least one swimming pool per day.

After a morning of fly catching with St Grace, where the Lozenge collected at least 30 black corpses in a jam jar ('I'm going to keep the lid on so they don't start breathing again' he whispered); and a lime and spoon race where Spiderman was caught indulging in some foul play by applying glue to the spoon; we set out. Me and the 2 neon lilos - the 3 of us very inflated, 2 float-aid noodles and 2 boys, goggles already on, in swimming trunks and a Spiderman suit. No risk of being run over with this kind of a caravan.

The closest pool is at the American Colony Hotel - with beautiful gardens and creeping vines already heavy with purple bunches of grapes. We settled on a couple of loungers around the manicured poolside beside a tall woman with short blonde hair.

Rashimi started stroking my tummy. 'The baby will come out of your tummy naked!' said the Lozenge. 'After this one you could have more and more babieth and then it would be BABY world. Can we have 2 more babieth after this one. Please!' said Rashimi. 'And I'd like some pistachio ice cream, pleathe,' said the Lozenge.

The call to prayer sounded from the minaret over-looking our semi-clad activity. 'There'th the church.' 'No, that's a mosque - you can tell by the crescent moon on the top. A church has a cross.' 'And Jesuth was nailed to the cross,' said the Lozenge in a reverent tone.

I noticed the blonde lady was smirking and as we jumped in the pool I got chatting to her. It turned out she was a Norwegian midwife, living in Ramallah with her husband, training Palestinian midwives in the West Bank. A better poolside position we could not have hoped for - particularly 3 days before BFE's due date.

By this point we were in the water, and as I leant onto the side to chat to the lady, the Lozenge was swinging from the back of my bikini top, trying to undo it, and Rashimi clasped around the front - his nut brown dimpled hands gripping my bosoms, shouting 'I wish I had BOOBIES!'

Her face lit up when I told her we hoped to have our baby in the Holy Family Hospital. 'It's a lovely place and the midwives there are fabulous.'

The conditions in the government hospitals, she lamented, were very far from this standard - which was part of the purpose of her projects here. To improve facilities in government maternity wards, and to train up midwives for more home births to be possible. We discussed the fundamental issue of freedom of movement for Palestinians, which causes enormous problems for women in labour reaching any hospital in time. Checkpoints, flying checkpoints, the Separation wall, road blocks and roads within the West Bank for the use of Israeli settlers only, all hamper travel for any Palestinian. But for a Palestinian woman in labour the combination is a disaster. It would be interesting to see how long it would take Mary and Joseph to reach Bethlehem from Nazareth in the modern day West Bank. Perhaps it was quicker back then, on a donkey?

The organisation, Visualising Palestine, as ever, puts it as clearly as could be:

Between 2000 and 2006 at least 68 women gave birth at checkpoints of whom 35 miscarried and five died in childbirth. According to BBC report in 2008 an Israeli soldier in command of a checkpoint outside Nablus was relieved from duty and imprisoned for 2 weeks after he refused to allow a Palestinian woman in labour to pass through. The woman was forced to give birth at the check point and the baby was still born.

2 weeks. Shucks.

But it reflects the same parallel reality for Israelis and Palestinians we see every day.

If the perpetrator of the stabbings at the gay pride march last week had been a Palestinian, the chances are he would have been shot, and his family's property demolished.

But both this crime and the arson attack by Israeli settlers last week - killing the 18 month old baby, Ali Saad Dawabsha in Doma near Nablus - is the result of longstanding impunity towards settler violence, and the facilitation of the settlements themselves.

If Palestinian terrorism is the equivalent of Frankenstein's monster for Israel, then Israeli terrorism is Dr Frankinstein's natural-born child. Like a spoilt adolescent who has enjoyed conditions of impunity for a lifetime within the family - at some point he/she may turn on his own family. So now it's not only the Palestinians who are targets for Jewish extremists - but any Israeli, particularly any who lean to the centre or left as we saw in the Gay Pride march.

I read a statistic yesterday in the local press, that 91.5% of investigations into settler attacks on Palestinians were closed without indictments, despite Israeli authorities' claims of being committed to cracking down on nationalistically motivated crimes.

We'll be seeing news like this for a while, until the statistic changes.